The Librarian
by Vallory Russups
Summary: A wrong choice at the train station throws Harry into another universe where Tom Riddle is a Headmaster. He decides to spy on the bastard and, wait, is the vacancy of the Hogwarts librarian open? He just doesn't expect the library to be alive. Or: a young man's tale of riddles, friendship, old ways, and magical books that are more sentient than a book should be. TMRHP
1. Chapter 1 Beautiful Stranger

Disclaimer: Harry Potter doesn't belong to me, and neither does Tom Riddle.

This story is what I've wanted to write for an entire year and it's finally here. Because Tomarry Big Bang 2017 is a perfect excuse. Yep, another WIP. Don't you all love me?

 _Chapter 1. Beautiful Stranger_

 _Hello, hello, hello,_

 _Beautiful stranger._

 _How familiar the danger._

"So, I can choose to go back?" Harry asked the deceased Headmaster, hope and disbelief warring inside him. "Can I choose to go back before this all started, then?"

Before the world became what it was. Before Death Eaters ever entered Hogwarts' territory and tortured children and tormented adults there.

Before Lord Voldemort. Back to Tom Riddle.

Albus Dumbledore smiled.

"But of course!" The old man clapped his hands. Nostalgia swelled in Harry's heart, and although the anger at the Headmaster for concealing so many important things from him still burnt... his eyes stung and he wished to be that first year who believed in magic. "You can go anywhere you wish from here. Just choose the train."

Harry looked around the station. Upon waking, there had only been Professor Dumbledore, and shock, and the fractured child screaming out its pain.

Now, the train station expanded, seemed vaster than the Hogwarts grounds, and people thronged and rushed about. A crowd of girls pushed between Harry and the old man, and just as the boy prepared to feel the impact, none came. They passed through, like ghosts. Like mere impressions of the people they used to be.

The group scurried into a train adorned with purple trellises, which took off as soon as its doors snapped closed, and in its place there arrived another, a strange little train decorated with cakes, muffins, and glitter. It, too, found its passengers.

"Will any train bring me where I want to go?"

Harry wistfully eyed a flying train that had brooms holstered to the sides.

"No. You have to choose the right one."

"You do have any tips, right, sir?"

Professor Dumbledore's face brightened. "Indeed I do, dear boy!" His wrinkled hand pressed upon the blue robes on the left side of his chest. "You have to listen to what your heart and soul whisper."

Harry tried to listen.

Silence.

Somehow, this wasn't quite working.

"I think they whisper way too softly for me to understand them, sir," he conceded eventually. Professor Dumbledore only chuckled.

"Walk around here, and you may find what you are looking for."

Harry swept the expanses of the train station with a long, long look. Dread churned in his stomach. He was dreaming. There was no way he could change the past, no way could he fix it. The biggest miracle he could ever produce was not die-

He dredged up his resolution and decided to listen to his former Headmaster. For all his faults, the old man had helped him many times in the past, had been right many times, and perhaps this time he was right, too.

"Ah! Before you go," Albus Dumbledore's voice stopped Harry in his tracks just as the young man stepped towards the next platform, shoulders heaving in resignation, because he would do it, he wanted to do it... he just didn't know how. "Will you be bringing this child with you?"

Harry knew whom he meant. His gaze fixed on the red-skinned, ugly creature who pumped the air around them with its woe.

A next-to-last remnant of Tom Marvolo Riddle.

It was ugly and broken. Its cry hoarse and hate-filled.

And Harry couldn't leave it alone.

He picked it up. The child felt oddly heavy, like a yoke around his shoulders, but also surprisingly warm. Until then Harry hadn't realised the chill permeating his bones.

All wailing stilled.

"I don't want to," he confessed and wondered why guilt twinged in his heart. Surely it wasn't normal to feel this guilty and miserable for his nemesis. The horcrux let out a soft cry. "But... I don't want to become a killer either. I've never wanted to, sir, you know that. And I hope that if I prevent Voldemort from existing, this child won't exist either and won't suffer anymore."

"Commendable sentiment." Professor Dumbledore smiled. "Well, off you go. I'm afraid that the time you can spend here is limited before this place starts draining your life force. This is the land of the dead, after all. _Their_ station."

Harry didn't understand but he figured it was one of those moments when you had to act, not understand.

"Thank you," Harry whispered, Tom Riddle heavy in his arms. "You've done a lot for me. I'm still angry that you planned for me to die without being absolutely sure that I survive... That you never even told me that I was a horcrux... But I still appreciate the things you did for me when I was a child."

The old man might have been the one to doom him to a life with the Dursleys, but he had saved Harry from them, too.

With one last look and one last smile, the boy turned around. He didn't crane his neck back, but for some reason, he knew that he wouldn't see the Headmaster anymore.

Now, all he saw were trains and people, so many that he had never seen such an amount in his entire life.

The trains astounded him with how varied they were, how whimsical, some gilded with gold and gems, others gliding over the station on sets of colourful bird wings. A train with palms and hammocks swept an inch away from him, and Harry sighed longingly at the thought of a vacation, but ploughed resolutely onwards, the child cradled to his chest, its bawling non-existent.

Its eyes were closed, as if it fell asleep, but the presence still lingered, still as heavy.

He saw a train made of dragon scales, a train carried in the folds of a flock of Lethifolds' cloaks, a train of breathing flesh, and a train of transparent bone. He saw beings of all ages and races jump aboard the multitude of trains, and yet his heart still hadn't led him to the one destined for him. The one that would change the lives of so many people dear to Harry.

He didn't know how long he wandered until he felt it.

A tug.

Hardly believing his luck, Harry turned.

The train was nondescript. He hardly saw it, nestled as it was between a monstrosity made of sapphire owl feathers and a train of thistle and clay. It was black, with stripes of green and red running along the roof. Almost serpentine. With trepidation, heart beating fast in his chest, Harry neared the entrance.

The door opened, and a gust of smells – old leather and paper dust – sandbagged him in the nose.

"Ticket," a voice he recognised asked sternly.

Harry stumbled backwards when the face of Madame Pince, the Hogwarts librarian, jumped at him out of the darkness reigning inside. She was clad in battle robes, and her eyes inspected them both shrewdly. Harry shuffled his feet, readjusting his hold on the horcrux.

Madame Pince glanced at Tom. Nodded in approval.

"You may enter," she said shortly and faded back into whatever abyss she had sprung from. Harry, still reeling, did.

He didn't look back, and so he didn't see his old Headmaster eyeing him in contemplation.

"Should I have warned him that if he brings Tom with him, he will find a different train? One that follows the desires of _both_ their hearts?" The old man popped a lemon sherbet into his mouth. "Oh well."

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THE LIBRARIAN

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.

The whisper of trees in the Forbidden Forest remained unchanged. Treetops, rustling, blotted out the sky.

The child in his arms vanished. Its warmth still clung to his skin, through his dirty and worn clothes – well, it didn't seem like travelling to the past would have such a nice boon as cleaning him up a bit, even though the universe should have been nice enough to do this after all it had put him through. How lucky he wasn't accustomed to nice things.

He rummaged around in his pockets, hoping to find his phoenix feather wand. Tough luck. The familiar tingling was absent. Instead, he pulled out Draco Malfoy's slender wand.

 _At least, if I prevent the future from happening, he won't miss it._

Then again, it's not like Harry cared about Malfoy's comfort of all things.

His pockets also contained the few belongings he had had before going to die, including his Firebolt, the mirror shard, some clothes and galleons, his photo album – his entire life stuck in his pockets before his march to death.

 _It's a pity I can't find Ron and Hermione there._

A jolt of loneliness rushed through his mind before Harry lifted his chin and repressed the emotion like he had done many times before, back in his cupboard years, when emotions and nightmares had been his only companions.

 _Well, that's not exactly true. I remember having spiders as well. Ron would have had a coronary._

Harry smiled with no real humour.

Looking around, he made up his mind. He came with a purpose. Unfortunately, he couldn't reveal it, and that included Hogwarts' Headmaster who wasn't Dumbledore. Lingering would be unwise. Even if his magic didn't clue the centaurs in to his presence, the wards must alert the Headmaster that someone intruded Hogwarts, any minute now. Being caught would ruin everything.

He exhaled and took off in the direction of Hogsmeade.

This was another march. Another stretch of silence. Only, this time he was utterly alone – no phantoms of the past to drive away Dementors and Dark forces, even if Dark Forces consisted only of his own fear now. Funny how dying to save the world was easier than living with the same aim.

Harry told himself to stop being a coward and soldier on.

He just hoped _this_ march would end in something other than a death.

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THE LIBRARIAN

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.

Hogsmeade flourished. Gone was the tense atmosphere of grief, the fear, the silence, the sorrow. Even the evening air tasted different and brought with it the smells of caramel, cinnamon, herbs, pies, firewhiskey, and the flowery whiff that hung back after magical fireworks. He glimpsed them upon nearing the village, patterns of vibrant motley flames that cut into the canvas of the sky.

People, in festive robes and with smiles, ambled along the stalls filled with all sorts of magical sweets, and cakes, and street food. Harry's eyed widened. He had never seen anything of the like in the Hogsmeade of his time. The small village would have almost been boring if not for the fact that it was magical and had some entertaining shops. He had never seen anything like a _fair_ there.

His stomach growled.

 _If this isn't a sign from the universe, I don't know what is._

No one could fault him for indulging himself on the way to fulfil his mission, right?

He strolled to the nearest stall. They all sold food, drinks, firkins of firewhiskey and butterbeer, coffee-smelling drinks with fairy powder in them, pies containing magical herbs and plants... One stall smelled particularly delicious.

"Hello, dear!" a dark-haired, plump-lipped witch greeted him, swatting away a few stray pixies with a rolled newspaper in one hand. A finger swirled the drink in the goblet soaring by her side. "Here for the peach pie?"

"Uh... not exactly." Harry smiled, and forcing it on was almost easy. Hard to brood and think of saving the world while chatter and life washed over him in a soothing melody. "But now that you've mentioned it, I think this is exactly what I want."

The witch winked at him.

"Old Dorcas is good at guessing customer's wants! That aside, everyone is asking me for this pie today, it's a pity I didn't bake more. This is the last one. You want one slice or...?"

Harry glanced at the pie she displayed, with golden crust and peaches laid out on top and glazed. A small card announced the price in a wobbly scrawl: a sickle for the pie, three knuts a slice. Only a few triangles remained.

"Actually, make it two," Harry told her. "I think I'll eat one now, and save the other for later."

She smiled and cast a spell to wrap both of them in very thin parchment that wizards and witches used for food.

"Here you are!" she chimed, holding the pie out. Harry accepted and didn't waste time in tucking one slice into his pouch, and his teeth into the other. It was sweet but not overly so, just the way he preferred, and the smell of peaches tickled his nose.

It's been a while since he had tasted anything as good as this. Living in tents and off mushrooms with friends might sound like a fine, fun idea, but only when it wasn't a necessity and without hordes of Dark Lord's minions after you.

"Any tea or juice to go with it?"

Harry thought for a second, finally settling on pumpkin juice. He hadn't tasted it since Hogwarts and missed it dearly, almost as much as the life before Voldemort's resurrection. The memories of times when he drank it in the Great Hall trickled into his mind, and he almost sensed the warmth of Ron at his side, almost heard Hermione's voice urging them to finish and hurry to the lessons...

Would he ever hear their voices again? Harry remembered that time-travel was tricky, which meant that every single interruption of events could lead to uncertain results. Would Hermione and Ron even exist in this universe?..

Then again, even if they would, Harry was now in the past with Tom Riddle. About seventy years would pass before he met his friends again, and even if he would live to such an age, the people inhabiting this dimension wouldn't be his friends. He had left _his_ Hermione and Ron behind for good.

He ignored the prickling in his eyes.

"Is everything all right, honey?" the witch asked him.

"Fine." The washed out smile made a comeback. "I'm perfectly fine."

He fished out some coins and counted the right amount, but Dorcas stopped him.

"I will only take the money for the pie, the juice is on the house." She winked again. "You look barely out of Hogwarts, are you nostalgic about the school? Don't worry, I know the feeling, I was a student there myself a couple of decades ago."

"Really? What House?"

"Can you guess?"

"Hufflepuff?" was Harry's first thought. The woman gave off that homey, cosy feeling that reminded him of Mrs Weasley, even if the two looked nothing alike – this lady was thin, with tanned skin and hazel eyes, and for all that she called herself 'old', she didn't look a day over thirty.

Dorcas wagged a finger before plunging it into her coffee. Harry blinked.

"Wrong. Slytherin." She puffed out her chest proudly. "The Headmaster's House."

Reverence oozed from her voice, mixed with fear and a pride of a person belonging to a secret order.

"I didn't know Professor Dippet was a Slytherin," Harry remarked to keep the conversation going. Who knew, maybe this woman could point him to a shelter for the night? Harry had neither money nor friends here, in this lonely, lonely world.

She stopped swirling her finger in her drink.

"Professor Dippet? Who is it?" Dorcas shook her head. Then her eyes lit up, as if remembering, and a light, amused smile pulled at her lips. "I don't know what recreational potion you've ingested, doll, but you shouldn't do this again. Nasty things, these potions. Make you forget your own head sometimes. Professor Dippet retired decades ago. Now his position is taken by Headmaster-" She paused, lowering her voice. That veneration yet again. "Headmaster Riddle."

Harry's throat closed up. Colours, people, and smells meshed, and-

Why was he feeling like he was marching again?

"Headmaster... Riddle?" His hand shot up to grasp her forearm, desperate eyes drilling into the woman's. She didn't wince away, just put down her cup, hazel eyes unblinking. "Could you tell me his full name? Please, ma'am?"

She shot him a consoling smile and gently pulled his fingers away. "Of course."

An inhalation.

In a whisper:

"Tom Marvolo Riddle."

She sighed, and shuddered (as if an invisible wind tore through her when the name fell from her lips), and continued, "The best Headmaster in history- but you _do_ know everything about him. Really, dear, stop with the recreational potions. Here, take some peach pie instead. Looks like you need the food."

Moving to get some wrapping parchment, she shifted the rolled-up newspaper, unfurling it.

Harry snatched it to look at the date typed on a corner of the Daily Prophet.

All his plans tumbled down.

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THE LIBRARIAN

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It's been a week in this world and each day convinced him that something had gone dreadfully wrong. Terribly wrong. Albus Dumbledore had lied again. Harry wasn't in the right place at all.

This wasn't Tom Riddle's era. In fact, it wasn't even his parents' time.

He had ended up exactly a year earlier, in that summer before they parted for the quest, Ron, Hermione, and himself.

As if that wasn't enough, Harry didn't recognise Hogsmeade.

Gone was the tiny village of his school years. Alien presence crept into its every corner, every nook. He didn't know what launched a change, whether his world would have been the same if Voldemort chose a different course, but he appreciated the differences as much he found them jarring; difficult to enter utopia from a place where smiles bloomed rarely and withered quickly.

The pie lady turned out to be Madame Rosmerta's wife, Dorcas Meadowes. Harry wondered at the age difference, but it wasn't his place to judge them. He had been judged too often himself.

Now, he lived on the upper floor of the Three Broomsticks, thanks to Madame Rosmerta who provided him with food and board for some menial work that was too tricky or exhausting with magic. He had lied to Dorcas – who preferred to be called by name – that a potions accident had addled his mind and caused an amnesia of sorts, so now he hardly retained any memory of the life he had led before stumbling into Hogsmeade.

He pretended he didn't see she only pretended to believe him. Rosmerta, meanwhile, took his presence in The Three Broomsticks in stride and always offered a pint of butterbeer at the end of the day. Eventually Harry looked forward to it as much as some people look forward to breakfast when they go to sleep in the evening.

He made careful inquiries into Tom Riddle, of course.

No substantial result.

For one, few people called him Tom Riddle at all – most addressed him as the Headmaster, their voices low and wondering, full of worship and pride, yet a tinge of fear.

Voldemort didn't exist.

Or, as Harry thought spitefully, the bastard hid too well this time around, fooling the public, biding his time. Must be corrupting the poor youth in his free time. Harry shuddered. Neville's tales of a Hogwarts under Snape had been bad enough; Voldemort must be way, way worse.

So bad, in fact, that the Headmaster drew only admiration and respect. Brainwashing was amongst the worst crimes in Harry's mind, simply because people couldn't realise their brains were meddled with, couldn't see that a crime was happening at all.

They were all blind.

He pushed back the curtains in his tiny room in the attic, and snuck a glance at the passers-by. There weren't many of them; Hogsmeade wasn't a big village by muggle standards, and most witches and wizards preferred to spend time in their homes or pubs or shops. Only a couple of small groups were hanging around at the moment, especially so early in the morning.

A boy with red hair was laughing. A carefree laughter that real Ron rarely let out ever since the Horcrux-hunt started.

An ugly feeling twisted his chest, and Harry understood. He almost wanted to hit himself for his emotions... but how could one change their heart?

Still, he felt ashamed of himself because...

Harry secretly scoffed, and huffed, and fumed at their ignorance and innocence, but even more secretly... he envied them. He had never seen a place that happy before.

It would have been easy to forget the war back home. Sometimes, he almost did. Sometimes he wanted to. Sometimes he almost succeeded.

However, like it always happens, when we try to flee the past, the past comes back and finds us.

In Harry's case, it arrived in the form of an unscarred werewolf who wasn't a werewolf at all.

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THE LIBRARIAN

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"Ah, I wish we had more quiet mornings like this," Madame Rosmerta sighed into her cranberry cordial.

Harry tried not to turn around. If he did, his attention would definitely be snagged by her outstanding cleavage, and he would blush so damn hard that both women wouldn't be able to contain their laughter and would tease him even more.

Right. Gotta pay attention to this dirty spot right there.

Dorcas snorted and, pausing her batter-making process, pointed at her wife with a rolling pin. "Fancy hearing that from _you_! You're always the first woman to complain of boredom on days when hardly anyone comes."

Harry listened to the ladies banter, smiled at Madame Rosmerta's pout, while rubbing a spot with a magical-solution-soaked rag. He had been in The Three Broomsticks for two weeks, yet this was the first morning when he could breathe freely, when no customer infringed on the place-

The bells above the door rang.

Damn. He should stop jinxing it.

Harry rubbed a temple with his empty hand. Madame Rosmertha welcomed the patron, and he snuck a curious glance-

 _No._

The rag slipped out of Harry's fingers.

 _It can't be true._

He remembered hands reaching for each other, never finding contact. The pallor of scarred skin. Empty eyes, the gold evaporated from them. He remembered a body where a person used to be.

"Are you all right?" the man who entered asked with worry creasing his forehead. Madame Rosmerta half-rose from her seat to see what was wrong but Harry motioned for her to stay put.

He needed to keep himself in check. If he was acting like this when it was just Remus – Remus would never be 'just', how could such a thought even cross his mind? – what would happen when he bumped into the actual Tom Riddle?

Harry breathed in deeply. Luckily, his face was turned away from their worried gazes, which allowed him time to compose himself before he spun on his heels to face-

Remus.

A gasp escaped him.

The man didn't have scars on his face. No lines of worry and sorrow. No grief. No golden tint in his eyes.

The voice was the same and the features, but...

This man was a Remus, but he wasn't the Remus Harry knew, and somehow the boy could breathe again. Recollections still invaded his eyes, and he wanted to lean in and see if the scent was the same – something earthy and akin to a forest in deep autumn – but he held them back. He smiled.

"It's nothing, sir." Harry was reminded of the times he said that to his Remus, when the man worried about his nightmares at Grimmauld Place and about Slytherins giving him trouble back at Hogwarts – although now that Harry thought of it, it was probably him and his group that gave Slytherins trouble half the time. "Just a slight headache."

Unknowingly, Dorcas hastened to confirm his lie.

"Poor boy, got into an accident with a potion and now always down with something! I've always been telling that potion-making at home should be regulated."

Harry flushed and hoped he could find a way to derail the conversation. Not even because he hated people worrying about his health in such an obvious fashion, but because once that lady started stating her opinions, it would be a long, long ride to the end. And there might be an explosion or two and several more stains that just somehow appeared out of thin air. Harry honestly didn't know why he ended up scrubbing so much every single day.

Remus switched his attention back to her.

"Well, brewing potions at home might indeed be dangerous sometimes, but when you think about it, isn't all magic dangerous?" The not-werewolf sent her a charming smile. Dorcas remained unimpressed. She opened her mouth with a 'but', however, Remus was faster. Possibly, he already knew about her loquacious tendencies. Judging by the twinkle in his eyes... Yep, he definitely knew.

Harry's breath stuttered when he realised that even if the man was so different now, the boy could still read him.

"Anyway, I don't have much time to spare. Hogwarts is waiting for me!" Remus pushed his fist up in the air a bit, not as exuberantly as Sirius would have done, but much more cheerful than he had ever been in Harry's own time.

"And your pretty boyfriend with it," Madame Rosmerta taunted.

"We're not boyfriends, good Merlin," Remus muttered under his breath. "Why does everyone keep assuming this?"

Harry couldn't contain a smile. Actually, now that he thought about it... Ever since the man came in, he had been smiling. He wouldn't be able to return his lips to their normal state even if he tried... and, frankly, he didn't want to. He had had too little happiness for the past couple of years to throw away a chance to smile, even if all this was too good to be true. Even if it turned out to be a dream.

"Then, you're banging his pretty cousin," Madame Rosmerta continued. Harry hadn't remembered her to be as obscene and open in his age... then again, they had all been kids at the time and maybe she was just a responsible adult. His eyes fell down to her cleavage. A nipple burst out of the cup. Er... Maybe she was a responsible adult _sometimes_. "That'd actually be the better choice. If I didn't have my Dorcas, I'd be plowing her before she even knew what hit her."

"Stop bothering poor Remus," Dorcas ordered. She had been too busy with her cake to intervene. "I swear this boy will die single with how shy he is."

Harry flinched at the word 'die'. No one noticed.

"I'm not shy, I'm uninterested."

"Yeah, I thought I was too. Then I got laid."

Remus sighed, apparently already emotionally exhausted from the ordeal. Harry felt for him. Hard to keep your ground when someone ganged up on you. Harry himself always preferred to confront people one by one, especially when those people were Ron and Hermione. As much as they bickered, once united, they obliterated enemies.

Remus understood it, too. Thus, he acted.

"And who might you be? Are you a new worker here? I don't believe I've ever met you before."

Remus smiled his patented smile, but it was warm and untroubled. Harry didn't recognise it. Again, it made speaking easier.

"Ah, yeah. I'm Harry. Harry P- Evans. I've only been here for a couple of weeks."

"Then it's no wonder we're meeting just now. I was so busy with school that I haven't been able to come down here and relax for a while." The man offered him a hand. "I'm Remus Lupin."

"Nice to meet you."

His hand was warm and strong. Just like Harry was used to. He swallowed a lump in his throat.

"Are you a teacher?" Harry asked.

Remus laughed. "No, not really. I'm the groundskeeper. Well, one of the two. You will probably get the chance to meet my colleague, Hagrid, soon enough – even though he does prefer the Hog's Head."

Madame Rosmerta muttered something about competition. Harry remembered the many empty tables and the dinginess of Aberforth's place. She had nothing to worry about.

"You look young but I don't remember seeing you at Hogwarts before. What school did you go to?"

Harry pushed aside his rag – with no other visitors, Dorcas and Madame Rosmerta let him take it easy – and ran a hand through his hair.

"Er... no, I never went to school." Wasn't it obvious? He talked like a British man, and the only school in Britain that Harry knew of was Hogwarts, so why did Remus ask such a weird question? "I was homeschooled."

Hermione had told him that not all students went to Hogwars; some wrote letters of refusal, others didn't get an invitation because their magic was barely there or their first bout of accidental magic didn't happen until they were over eleven. He had always wondered where those children who neither got into Hogwarts nor were homeschooled went.

"Did you ever take your OWLs and NEWTs?"

Harry shook his head. "I- I think I was supposed to do it this summer, but then that accident happened, and now I've missed my chance," he mumbled.

"Are you by chance proficient in DADA, Runes, and Arithmancy?" Remus continued. Harry blinked.

"I was... really good at DADA." Surely the basilisk, Dementors, and angry Dark Lords counted? Pink toads, too. "But I've heard only a couple of things about Runes and Arithmancy. Mostly connected with warding."

While Hermione preferred spell-based wards, she had imparted some knowledge of other types to him, in case he ever got separated from them and didn't have his wand on him.

Remus sighed yet again. Some things didn't change.

"Oh well, I tried." He perked up. "But maybe it'll be fine anyway!" Before Harry could ask, the man turned and shouted at Madame Rosmerta, "Do you mind if I use your noticeboard? I have a job alert to bring to the masses."

He fished out a slightly torn slip of parchment with words in an intricate green cursive.

Harry almost jumped because he _knew_ that cursive.

'I am Tom Marvolo Riddle' floated through his mind, and it took all his strength to ward off nausea.

"If you find the space, be my guest." The woman shrugged and gulped down a shot of cordial. "Has one of your teachers finally realised how underpaid they are and flipped you the finger?"

"Well, maybe compared to your revenue, a teacher's salary is meagre, but I find it more than adequate," Remus defended with pride.

"You have obnoxiously low standards."

Remus turned to Harry, who was still staring at the script.

"I don't know how you've managed to survive with those two."

"Some things are meant to remain mysteries," the boy replied dryly. "Even to me."

Remus shook his head again before moving on. "Actually, it's the librarian's vacancy that needs some filling in." His voice took on a sad edge. "Madame Pince passed away a couple of weeks ago."

Harry remembered the train.

"How did she die?" he asked hesitantly. He hadn't seen any wounds on her, so he surmised her death had been peaceful. There had been wounded people at the station, some even mutilated... but maybe he was reading the situation wrong.

"No one knows," Remus whispered with a frown. "They think it was a book that killed her."

"A book?" Harry cocked his head.

Was it some papery beast like Hagrid's Monster Book of Monsters? But then, wouldn't such a veteran as Madame Pince deal with it?

"Dangerous job, that," Dorcas said and blew a strand off her eye. "Good luck finding an applicant."

Was there something Harry was missing?

Probably. But that was his usual state of mind.

Wait! An applicant. A job. A job at Hogwarts. A job at Hogwarts, right by Tom Riddle's side, where he could spy on the man and find out all his evil plans! This sounded amazing. He didn't even care that he had never liked books before and was more of a hands-on sort of guy.

Now, what were they saying again?

Harry's face bloomed so much that it attracted the attention of everyone in the room, including a couple of customers who entered and froze, staring at the scene before Madame Rosmerta shoved away her cordial, pushed up all her significant chest size – everyone just stared again – and went to serve with all the fierceness of a warrioress.

"I am!" he exclaimed in the face of a stunned Remus who couldn't quite process the change in attitude. "I'm the applicant! What do I have to do?"

"Treason!" Madame Rosmerta shouted before asking the customers to repeat their orders. Nobody paid her any mind.

Remus smiled wryly. "For one, you have to be proficient in DADA and have at least working knowledge of Ancient Runes and Arithmancy. That's the ideal scenario."

"Well, we aren't living in an ideal world," Harry reminded him resolutely. Purpose made speaking with his former teacher – in another world – way easier.

"Considering how few people want to take it on, there is the possibility of training in Runes and Arithmancy so long as your DADA skills are stellar. They are only needed for warding, after all, and we have a whole castle full of teachers. Of course, whether you are good enough will be decided by the Headmaster during an interview."

Harry's heart skipped a beat. No, not in a romantic way. It skipped a beat – or ten of them – the way it had when he plunged his sword arm-deep into the basilisk.

He swiped a hand over his clammy forehead.

"The Headmaster," he began, almost in a whisper. "As in... Tom Riddle?"

"Of course it is Tom Riddle. Who else?" Remus smiled kindly.

 _Could have been Professor Dumbledore,_ Harry thought wistfully. _But since when has the world made anything easy for me?_

Suddenly, the not-werewolf's arm struck out and grasped him by the elbow, which was yet another difference – the Remus of his world preferred ruffling Harry's hair, like Sirius, or give him one-armed shoulder hugs.

And Harry should stop comparing them because the Remus of his world was long dead. He never would be getting those hugs again even if he found a way to return.

"If you fail the interview, it's not like your whole life would be over. There are other jobs. Although something tells me you'll be successful anyway. Call it an instinct but... I'm rather sure that Headmaster Riddle will like you!"

Looking back, Harry thought that Trelawney should step down and give the Seer title to Remus Lupin.

.

.

THE LIBRARIAN

.

.

Nightmares jolted him awake.

In his dreams, he walked.

There were dark shapes, and cloaks, and swathes of shadows dancing in the distance. Ghosts following on his toes. Death whispered. Duty supported it. He listened, and bent his head, and walked. He told himself that phantom presence behind his back helped, and perhaps it infected him with a strange calmness and bravery in the face of demise, but it didn't veil the truth: there was nothingness behind him, nothingness before him, and what did he exist for if no one would see him again?

In the midst of desperation, the choice had been easy. Harry would twist the timeline to his pleasure, break it if needed, but everyone would live and prosper. Be happy. Teddy would have parents.

Now, after seeing Remus, after noting all those subtle differences, grief struck him more than on any night before.

Had he stayed, he would have lost his parents, and Sirius, and Remus ( _but hadn't they said they lived on in his heart?_ ), and others, and that was all true and heartbreaking, and even though people said that wounds heal with time, Harry's always found reasons to rub off the scabs.

But he left. And he lost _everyone_.

Now, Harry grasped the extent of his sacrifice.

Yet he wouldn't have done a thing differently. He saved other people. It was his thing. He had spent his whole childhood waiting for salvation, and it had never come, so he resolved to become one for other people. He was a ruin but ruins could be transformed into something beautiful, and he would build temples over stone, gardens over the charred earth.

He was jealous of happy people and hated himself for it, but at the same time he wanted to spare others from his own pain.

He turned this over and over in his head the night before the interview with Riddle, and he knew that the next day wouldn't be his best.

.

.

THE LIBRARIAN

.

.

Look at it, he was right!

Harry felt like he'd been dumped among the Forbidden Forest's fauna for the night and told to run. He looked like it, too – eyes red-rimmed, skin pale, and an aura of doom enveloping him like a plague cloud around a zombie in one of Dudley's video games.

On such days, Ron liked to say 'Mate, you look like Malfoy on a bad day'. Harry privately thought that it was actually a compliment because Malfoy's bad day was damn more terrific than most people's good days, including Harry's... if not for the blond's rotten soul and black and ugly heart.

Now he was going to meet another person with a drop-dead gorgeous face and- oh wait, it's not like Voldemort even had a full soul. Harry shuddered and wished he had Gryffindor's sword with him. All this thinking of snakes always made him want to reach for one. Must be a habit.

He fidgeted in his robes. They itched. He refused to scratch on pure principle, but it wasn't the only problem around. The collar was too stifling. In the heat, Harry felt like dying, especially because Malfoy's wand decided to be difficult again and refused to cast a warming charm. And his robes had _white lace_ , what the hell was that!

He had been unable to get out of them because they had been a present from Dorcas and Madame Rosmerta, who almost cried when he point-blank refused to wear them... and in the face of their tears, of course he damn well had to change his mind. He wasn't a monster, for God's sake!

They told him with how much care they had chosen the outfit. Yeah, right. They very carefully chose the most uncomfortable garment in the whole darn shop as retaliation for his abandoning them. He wasn't even sure whose idea it was. Both ladies possessed enough sadistic inclinations.

At first, he wondered whether Dorcas Meadowes had been this passive-aggressively evil even back in his own time, but then he remembered that he had never met her. Voldemort's servants had killed her long before.

Harry shook off those thoughts, refused to grit his teeth.

Voldemort.

The monster. The gorgeous prefect and Head Boy. The orphan. The killer of his parents and so many others.

Voldemort.

The baby abandoned at the station, crying and desperate and helpless. The baby whose warmth and weight lingered still.

Harry was early for the interview, and on his way he even hardly glanced at Hogwarts that he had missed so much on their lonely nights in the tent, a Hogwarts that was whole and humming with life and magic despite being almost empty for the summer.

He reached the Headmaster's office (Remus had given him a simplified map with his path shown in gleaming red).

Harry's heels clicked on the floor as he stopped abruptly.

Riddle decided to forgo passwords. Entrance was granted through the use of something much more ancient and wild... And utterly creepy. Very Voldemort-style.

"Why am I doing this again?" Harry mumbled under his breath, stretching out a hand and sticking it between the dragon's teeth. Riddle had done away with the gargoyle. Not pretentious enough, apparently.

The dragon bit, and Harry winced. He also cursed Riddle, and Remus, and Dumbledore, and his own mind.

Entrance to Riddle's office could only be granted through blood. A tiny rivulet trickled down the stone tooth.

The dragon's maw opened and revealed the stairs that spiralled upwards and carried him into the room. Harry's breath came short, he wondered if he was hyperventilating or having a panic attack – he hadn't experienced many, but enough to be wary and try to calm himself down as much as he could. It wasn't working as well as he hoped.

Especially not when the stairs ended their short journey that felt like an eternity of silent suffering and heartbeat thumping in his ears, and he saw the room.

Albus Dumbledore's office didn't compare to this.

And by 'didn't compare' Harry meant that this was the most sinister room he had ever had the displeasure of seeing, including the Malfoy Manor dungeons filled with Hermione's screams and Bella's laughter.

There weren't any bloodstains, or creepy laughing skeletons, of course. Nor anything traditionally hair-raising. The room was grey more than anything, with vague shades of washed out violet here and there, or hues of what could or could not be green. The only furniture consisted of a sturdy desk, a bookshelf, a huge map with runes scrawled all over in neat twists, and a vase with strange whiteish flowers peeking out like finger bones. Sunlight streaming through the uncovered latticed windows only emphasised the emptiness and gloom.

That wasn't disturbing.

That part was reserved by the portraits.

All of them were frozen.

The eyes were smeared with black paint.

And they were screaming. Screaming so loud that Harry dropped to his knees after making only two steps from the stairs. He couldn't make out the words, not at first, but then he did.

 _Freedom in death, freedom in death, freedom in death, free-_

"What the hell…" he murmured, hastily trying to remember any spell to silence them because Silencio failed.

He needn't bother. As soon as it came, the screaming stopped.

"This is their reply to a question I asked them a while ago," came the voice from behind him. Harry's insides lurched. Slowly, he turned around, his breath puffing out in uneven gusts. "One of the two."

Tom Riddle was leaning against the doorframe. He was smiling. He also looked nothing like Voldemort... except for that glint of danger hidden deep in his red eyes.

"Hello, Harry," he purred. "Could you tell me what you're doing in my office in my absence?"

The nightmare arrived.

.

.

THE LIBRARIAN

.

.

"I'm here for the interview," Harry spoke up after minutes of staring and oh Merlin was there a lot to stare at.

Sharp cheekbones, those red eyes that sucked your attention in like a black hole, classic features... Those didn't change. He was similar to the Tom Riddle who tricked Hepzibah Smith, a combination of ambition, power, intelligence, and relative sanity.

Yet he felt different from any other version of Tom Riddle he had ever met, including Pensieve memories.

He was dressed in black velvet robes, simple and classical, full of authority and dominance, just like Voldemort, but there was wildness in his appearance foreign even to his most insane version. Harry couldn't place his finger on it. Yet he got the vibe that this- Tom Riddle? Voldemort? Did it even matter? – was the most unpredictable of the lot.

His smile walked the fine line between mocking and amused, and the arch of his brow screamed perfection. Harry knew Voldemort would only show the emotions he wanted the boy to see.

"Such beautiful green eyes you have," he suddenly purred in the sultriest of voices.

Harry flushed. Where the hell did that come from?

Maybe it was paranoia talking or maybe he didn't trust anyone and anything associated with Riddle, but this compliment was so out of the blue and suspicious as heck, that it was just the whack on the back Harry needed to adjust his attitude and shut down all those unsettling feelings crawling around in his stomach.

"Thank you. I know. I've had them all my life."

Voldemort tutted in displeasure and strolled to his desk.

"You should learn to accept a compliment."

"I did thank you. What else should I do? Blush and bat my eyelashes? Melt down in a pile?"

Adrenaline pumping in his ears almost drowned out the sound of what he was saying, but suddenly Harry was in the graveyard again, full of courage and bravery and belief that the good always won. (Which it did. Except that the sacrifices were too big sometimes).

Voldemort gracefully settled in his chair and tucked a hand beneath his chin, surveying Harry under a few stray curls. With a jolt, Harry remembered model student's Tom Riddle's hair always being sleek and perfect, but this version obviously preferred a different style.

Harry expected the Headmaster to be pissed off.

"This is the fiery attitude our librarian needs," the man announced instead. It stopped Harry short. Voldemort despised people talking balk to him. Or generally not bowing down and pledging their lives to him.

"Oh." Harry pushed his weight to the back of his heels and frowned. "That's... nice, I suppose?"

Voldemort smirked.

"Indeed. After all, having the right attitude is one of those 'nice' things that will land you the job." Red eyes gleamed, and Harry couldn't look away. "Another one is..." He almost whispered, "Power."

Of course, that was the moment Voldemort attacked.

* * *

\- This story is partly inspired by my indignation at the lack of librarian!Harry fanfics, and partly by my amazement at how cool and even kinda alive the books in the HP-verse are. I mean, invisible books, monster books which you can caress (guess who Harry's next pet is gonna be?), cursed books, books that make someone speak in limericks... Strangely, even though the idea is so enchanting to me, I've hardly ever seen it even mentioned in stories.

\- For a better idea of what this story is gonna be, I'm going to include what I did in my bigbang summary: Basically a mentorship/romance fic. Harry becomes a librarian, solves pretty much anyone's problems but his own, hunts down books, has magic lessons, gets way too close to Riddle, reassesses some ideas and people, and tries to make the world a nice place for everyone.

\- I've been gone for a while but I do come back with a bang!.. and a bunch of updates for you guys. Stay tuned for When Lies Turn into Truth tonight, because I've finally got round to editing the new chapter (yes, really). Also, this story already has 3 chapters, all of which will be posted during the bigbang week... so, if you have some will and free time, I'd be really grateful for a **beta** for this fic?

Also, if you're reading my other stories, please let me know whether you'd prefer me to update Tearing the Veil from Grace, Design Your Universe, or Beauxbatons University of Magic next!

\- Hope you liked it, and please leave a review, there's nothing that makes my day quite like them ;)


	2. Chapter 2 Colliding Minds

Hello, everyone! Whoa, I was so blown away by the response to this story! I mean, I know this fic is one of the weirdest AUs to ever happen, thus it's so so so so amazing and flattering to have so many people willing to give it a go! Thank you all so very much, seriously. I've responded to most people already, except for the more recent reviews, so if you still haven't received a reply, it's coming soon. And thank you again! *hearts hearts hearts*

This chapter is a bit late because IRL issues, but always better to post something 'a bit' late than 'omfg god val you promised this back in fucking november of last year i hate you so damn much' late.

Hope you enjoy this chapter just as much as the first one! (and I actually didn't mean for Tom to steal the show so much; he just did)

* * *

 _Chapter 2. Colliding Minds_

* * *

A flash of crimson eyes, a second of suspension – and an abyss absorbed him.

A moment of darkness, a second of fear and doubt and relief-

A moment afloat in a cloudy, murky green like the spirits and preserving potions drowning the animal parts bottled in Snape's office-

And he was on solid ground. A phoenix screamed.

Harry stumbled backwards, trying to hold onto walls or reality, but neither worked. He didn't have the time to regain his footing because there was a _basilisk_ and it was coming right-

Through him. As if he were a ghost, a... memory.

Harry turned around, the basilisk still sliding into his body and past it, and his hunch confirmed: Gryffindor's sword glimmered and found its home in the monster's maw. The monster's fang burrowed in a young boy's shoulder. Himself, a younger version.

Everything around was smudged, even Ginny, even Tom Riddle and his diary. Just two central figures jutted out – memory-Harry and the beast. The beast fell.

Present-Harry cheered, cried out his victory-

And caught sight of a presence foreign to the memory, caught a glint of ruby eyes again, and they laughed and triumphed in turn.

They didn't notice the ink trickling down the ground to the creature's corpse.

Harry cursed himself and the Dark Lord as Legilimency was renewed, but the vortex of mind magic didn't yield, and he blinked and flashed to somewhere else.

Now, he panted on the ground, the wind scattering yellow autumn leaves around him-

No, not the wind. Dudley. His cousin and his gang towered over him, the silhouettes of buildings behind them peeking through a gauze of blurs.

Dudley was laughing and stepping forward, and the memory-Harry did what he had done: tossed a stone right at his feet. The bigger boy lurched and toppled Piers Polkiss, while Harry wasted no time in stumbling to his feet and skittering down the road.

The present-day Harry didn't follow. He sought out Voldemort's presence instead. His escape.

He sensed the weight of eyes on his back, the burn, the judgement.

By now, Harry realised that he was trapped in some form of Legilimency. He cursed his luck. This was the absolute worst situation for him. At least – and that was the strangest thing – a great part of the recollections was muddled. As if someone took a freshly-painted watercolour sketch and went over it with a water-laden brush until certain parts faded, were only hinted at.

It wasn't his doing. He realised, however, that the fragments obscured were keys to understanding the... future? His world? Things that would give a lot away to Voldemort. Things that would raise questions.

Was the magic of the train station protecting his mind?

Harry was grateful.

However, even if Voldemort found nothing in his memories to raise suspicions as to his origins, he still found out information about Harry himself.

The boy looked at the Dark Lord.

Voldemort wasn't watching him. That disturbing crimson gaze – no slit pupils, not here, not yet – focused on a tiny boy in oversized rags hurriedly squelching down the road of mud and rotten leaves, pursued by four big bullies with whoops of 'Harry Hunting Time!'.

Harry flushed.

The man had no right to witness this. Not when he was the cause.

"Fuck you," he hissed. That drew Voldemort's attention. His head tilted. He watched Harry with an almost indulgent smile. "Stop this or I-"

He halted.

Everything he had achieved so far, he had achieved with luck or friends. Now, he was abandoned by both.

What _could_ he do to a Dark Lord cunning enough to control Hogwarts and conceal his nature in plain sight, strong enough to shred his soul and become the most feared wizard of all time?

Voldemort saw his hesitation and bridged the space between them.

"Or what, Mr Evans?" he asked silkily. A hint of breath puffed across Harry's face. The proximity stifled him; he could count the lashes obscuring those eyes that watched him intensely through lowered lids.

Too close.

Too dangerous.

Harry's heart, however, was in love with danger.

He steeled himself. Raised his chin. He had died once, he had lived twice. He was the Master of Death. How could a man who feared his end so much ever pressure him?

"I will stop at nothing to pay you back for what you've done," he said and knew he was talking not to the Headmaster but to the Dark Lord he had abandoned.

Voldemort's eyes widened, and he laughed, and Harry shivered, and yes, this man _could_ pressure him. Could break him apart with a smile. Pick him apart with a few questions.

Yet Harry would stand tall. Fight back. It was all right to be afraid. Being paralyzed by fear wasn't.

"Is it bravery or stupidity, I wonder?" Voldemort mused to himself. He traced a skeletal finger down Harry's cheek and the boy stood tall under that, too. "But... I am so interested in what else your memories are going to reveal," he continued in a whisper that slashed through the memory and shattered it.

The scenery flipped.

The dawning sun turned into the moon, bronzes and browns morphed into blacks and blues and all the hues that come at night time.

Harry's hands twitched for his wand.

He was adrift in a sea of Dementors. Cold slipped even past the veils of memory. His younger self quivered on the ground and shielded the smudge that could only be Sirius. The present Harry paid them no mind.

He forced himself to relax, to remember Snape's brutal assaults and Hermione's gentle tips.

He could defend himself by relaxing and ignoring Voldemort, eventually swimming back to reality. Well, he already knew he wouldn't have much luck with that. No one could simply _ignore_ the Dark Lord.

Another way was a contest of wills.

Harry smiled sharply and _willed_ the memory to disappear. It didn't work.

He tried harder. Summoned all his resolve.

Meanwhile, Voldemort observed his Patronus, and Dementors retreated, and memory-Harry collapsed on the ground-

It was coming to an end. Voldemort looked ready to switch the recollection – but it would end on Harry's terms.

Harry willed, and willed, and willed – and he made it.

His victory lasted only a moment. Voldemort's office flickered in front of him before those beautiful, terrifying eyes overtook everything again, but it was a victory still. He _could_ do it.

This time the memory they appeared in was almost entirely jumbled but Harry heard the chinking of coins and recognised Gringotts, and both he and Voldemort spotted a dragon's scales.

Harry used his new-found knowledge and pushed. Voldemort's spell held but the memory changed.

When he opened his eyes, he ended up in the place he least wanted to see.

The final battle.

The train-station magic hid the grounds, hid the whole of Hogwarts, creating a space of distorted shadows. Above, however...

Colourful incantations pinwheeled across the sky, sliced into the shimmery net of stars. Harry snatched a second to gaze at them, mesmerised.

How could something so beautiful exist above so many deaths and endings?

Harry remembered his Remus, remembered Tonks, and Colin, and Lavender, and an unnamed fourth-year jumping in front of her friend, and...

Fists clenched, he wrenched his gaze away.

Voldemort stood there, too, just a few feet away from him. His head was raised to the sky and he observed the spells with curiosity and wonder, as if seeing a show, blind to the history behind it. Blind even to his own demise.

Harry snatched his chance.

He could use this to escape the mind game; Voldemort didn't hold him anymore.

 _Or_ Harry could snap back.

He chose.

This time _he_ bridged the gap.

Just three strides, determination, and a surge of power.

Harry grinned and reached up to grab Voldemort's jaw, lace cuffs from his sleeves hanging down the man's neck and tickling his chin.

"I promised to pay back," he growled and yanked Riddle's head down. He summoned the sensations of intrusion, all his will to probe the man, and forced it down his mind.

Voldemort's eyes widened, not in triumph for once, and Harry caught it.

Just one glimpse.

Just one scene, which stood out in startling clarity compared to his own:

The fronds of bone-finger flowers curled threateningly around a runic circle, a mangled body spread its entrails across the glyphs filled with magic light, blood hammered down the scene in raindrops...

And a figure, hooded, knelt right in the middle.

Crumpled, broken, the hem of a velvet black robe in tatters like a Dementor's cloak. Harry heard a male voice chanting, recognised it, drifted forward-

A hand struck out to grab his forearm from behind. Nails bit into the tender flesh. Harry inhaled.

"It is too early for you to see, Mr Evans," Voldemort's smooth voice caressed his ears, soft, a contrast to the pain he inflicted. "If you linger, I shall have to destroy you, and do you know how bothersome it is to find someone to fill the librarian position?"

Before Harry could give him a piece of his mind, Voldemort clasped the back of his neck, rough, dominating, and yanked his head up and sideways as if to kiss him. Their breaths mingled.

Harry knew he should punch him. He readied himself to do just that – but Voldemort left him no time. Warm fingers snaked up to his chin, forced him to look into those burning red eyes, and the spell lifted.

His mind was free of Legilimency. Reality was calling, and the bond between them faded.

But Harry's business didn't end there. He _needed_ information.

Desperately clinging, Harry shot one last look at the memory, caught a glance of the Gaunt ring glinting on a cadaverously white and shaking hand, heard a pained cry-

Voldemort pulled him harshly out into the present – the Headmaster's office, a world of blinded paintings, cold and strange but with a backdrop of the cheerfully blue summer sky tearing through the lattice of the window.

.

.

THE LIBRARIAN

.

.

Harry panted on the floor. Voldemort reclined in his plush chair that looked so temptingly comfortable Harry almost walked over and bumped the blasted man off it to sit there himself. The only thing stopping him was that Riddle probably wouldn't take too kindly to that, the inconsiderate bastard.

Harry surveyed the Headmaster from beneath his thick fringe. The man sat cross-legged and... bored. As if the last moments hadn't happened.

Well, if Riddle ignored the whole thing, Harry would as well. Better get in touch with his Slytherin side for now and act normal.

"Why couldn't you just attack me like a normal person?"

This was his first safe question.

Harry straightened, panting, and evil-eyed the jerk.

It was supposed to be a dramatic battle between the two of them. Not... that. Was the Dark Lord going to pervert everything sacred between them?

Voldemort raised an eyebrow.

"You are going to be a librarian, not a duelling instructor. What would attacking you with magic accomplish? You are not intending to duel the books in the library one on one, are you?"

No one could sound more unimpressed.

Harry refused to blush and settled on huffing instead. He wanted to sit somewhere, to ground himself and feel more in control. No such luck. The only seat belonged to the Dark Lord, who wasn't sharing any time soon, and Harry was left standing in the middle of the office, insecure and hesitant and not knowing what to do with himself.

 _The fucking arsehole is doing this on purpose._

The sun pierced through the gaps in the window's lattice, and in its light Riddle's dark brown hair shone almost auburn and his amused eyes looked almost warm. The Headmaster leaned an elbow on the armrest and held up his face with his fingers. His fringe fell down on one eye, while the other scrutinised a shifty Harry. Voldemort sighed.

"My test," he started in a voice as velvety as his robes, "serves two purposes. One, in your mind I can seek out moments of danger and see first-hand how you deal with them. What I have seen is satisfactory enough on this account."

To hell with the dramatic duel, Harry would throttle him then and there.

'Satisfactory?'

Remus wouldn't mind if Harry relieved them of a Headmaster, would he?

Voldemort wasn't finished.

"The other part of the test is to see how well you resist mind pressure. The purpose of most curses placed on books is to protect the knowledge held within," he continued. He sounded more like a professor than a Dark Lord set on luring his prey. "Targeting the reader with physical attacks is insufficient, considering how easy it is to heal those. The mind breaks easier than the body... And knowledge stays safe."

Riddle stood up and placed a hand on the back of his armchair, slanting forward. The gesture drew Harry's attention. The hand was bare, no ring – but his eyes still lingered on the graceful lines of fingers, the lazy pressure they put. He could easily imagine those same fingers curl around a wand in the man's signature grip. Or around a throat.

The Headmaster spoke, and Harry listened again.

"Although you struggled with protecting your memories completely, you manipulated the scenery adequately enough to pique my interest."

 _This better be bastard-speak for 'you did bloody amazing, Harry, and I couldn't see anything worth a damn in your mind'._

Voldemort pressed his lips and almost strained out the next few words, "This is... something a person well-versed in Occlumency would do. Are you... an expert?"

Harry analysed the pauses, analysed Voldemort's expression...

And strangled a cackle at how bothered the Dark Lord was about that.

He couldn't resist.

Harry jerked his chin up.

"Yes. That's me. The Occlumency expert." And he _knew_ it was stupid but he just couldn't help it. Voldemort rubbed him in all the wrong ways. Starting from the day he killed his parents. "And I have my moments with Legilimency, too. I bet you remember that."

Riddle's eyes narrowed. His knuckles washed white before his face cleared and he smiled. Harry wondered if he should start running.

"I see. I trust you used the Paracelsus method to defend your mind?" Voldemort asked unexpectedly reasonably.

 _Who the hell is Paracelsus?_

Harry used to have a card with him somewhere, didn't he?

Wait, he also actually remembered Flitwick squeaking something about the guy but damn did he also remember Terry Boot's muscled forearms with fine hairs glinting golden in the spring sun.

Harry unwittingly snuck a glance at Voldemort's forearms. Clothed and swathed in dark velvet. Hah. As if the bastard knew he paled in comparison and shielded himself shamefully from eyes.

...Anyway. Now was his chance to show what he was made of. He would show his superiority even if he had to lie.

He had fought off Voldemort in his mind and was drunk on victories. He couldn't resist.

Yes, Harry. Time to show your brain power.

"Of course I'm using the Paracelsus method," he said like a boss, drawing up in height, determination shining through as much as indignation – how dare Riddle imply Harry didn't know what the Paracelsus method was?

...Did his eyes deceive him or did Voldemort's lips twitch?

Anyway, the bastard should thank gods – and Harry, because he was the one to end up in this forsaken hole of a dimension instead of where he wanted – that he even _had_ lips to twitch. Meanwhile, the boy tried frantically to remember the lying lessons Hermione had taught to Ron and him.

 _Boys, if you_ are _breaking rules, at least be sneaky about it!_ She had scolded them (once. Or twice. Or maybe seven years).

Harry and Ron pointed out that her acting abilities and talent to get out of trouble with all sorts of authority were inconsistent with her worship of that same authority. They ended up on SPEW badge duty for a week and never mentioned it again.

 _What did she say? Add more details to make it convincing? Or was it_ less _?.. Anyway, I'm winging it._

It was his inner Hermione whom Harry was channelling when he built on his well-meaning lie that opened the doors to his professional life and was on the same level with the Roonil Wazlib fiasco, "I'm awesome at Occlumency, I'm using it all the time. Stuff like this comes easily to me."

That was just enough detail to be convincing but not enough to drown him, right?

 _Wrong._

Riddle covered his eyes with his too-pretty hand and laughed. A smooth, rich laughter that grasped hearts and minds.

"Mr Evans," the Headmaster drawled softly, "Paracelsus was no wizard, despite some historians painting him as such and spreading the incorrect information. In reality, he was a Squib who pined for magic to the point where he moved to the muggle world where he could flaunt the knowledge he could never put to practice. He indeed contributed to several magical theories, but half of them was proven false.

"Actually, in rarefied, distinguished circles," he continued and smouldered Harry with a look that clearly conveyed how little he believed in Harry belonging to those circles, "the 'Paracelsus method' is an old euphemism for 'bluff'. 'Fake'."

His smile widened as every word brought out more blush to Harry's face.

"However, do not worry too much about it. For the job, you need your magic and situational thinking, not culture and refinement. Well done, Mr Evans. You are accepted."

Why did Harry feel like he was insulted in there somewhere?

Still, he did pass his first job interview, no matter how bizarre the whole experience was. His face glowed.

A faint smile curled Riddle's lips and he stalked around the desk – his nails dragged across the polished wood – and towards Harry. Harry side-eyed him and shied away. The Headmaster simply strode past him.

"Usually people cheer when they get the job," Riddle asked off-handedly, his voice drifting behind Harry.

 _They cheer when they get the job they actually want. Good Merlin, what am I going to do with_ books _of all things?_

Harry brushed away the statement. Instead, he asked, "Where am I going to live?"

Hogwarts, of course, but he couldn't exactly claim his bed in the Gryffindor dorms.

Voldemort hummed. Harry took it as a sign to turn around and face the man. Riddle observed him with a tilted head again. Despite their proximity, Harry didn't feel the urge to smack him in the face like he had in the memory. Still, he shifted and twitched. Voldemort's presence suggested many things but safety didn't make the list.

"Well, considering you have never visited the castle, I shall have to show you." He looked... childishly enthusiastic. Harry didn't share his fervour.

Voldemort showing him around.

Cruciatus sounded more appealing.

Still, that didn't stifle Harry's protest of "This doesn't exactly answer my question, does it? I asked _where_ , not _how do I get there_!"

Riddle shot him an unblinking stare, looking absolutely _done_ with Harry as if he had any right to be so!

"Even if I tell you, how exactly are you planning on getting there?" Voldemort closed his eyes – gosh, even that smacked of sheer _elegance_. "You have never visited Hogwarts. It is not my responsibility to fish out poor souls lost in the maze of my castle's corridors."

" _Your_ castle? I didn't think Hogwarts belonged to you," Harry bit out. His palms found his hips, elbows jutting out. Hogwarts was _his_ home.

Riddle's lips twisted. Harry followed the motion with his eyes and damn, Voldemort might hide his – most likely – inferior forearms but his lips were bloody perfect. Should have gone for plastic surgery when he was a snake monster.

"It might as well do," Voldemort declared, and Harry gaped because he definitely hadn't expected this audacity. "I am the Headmaster. Exceedingly competent, especially compared to my predecessor." He gestured at the paintings. "They would tell you but alas, the paintings in this office are currently... indisposed."

Riddle sent him a charming smile.

Harry's stomach twisted and he could only hope it was the _right_ kind of twisted.

"Why do I get the feeling you've got something to do with that?"

This time the Headmaster ignored him and turned away.

"Now, come. I have a busy schedule to keep to. And..." Riddle looked over his shoulder, the shadows cast by his hair gifting his eyes with a burgundy hue. "Since you are asking: you will live in the dwelling of prophecies. The Divination Tower."

With a strange smile, he rustled down the stairs, and Harry's heart sunk with every step. He numbly followed Voldemort out.

The paint-smeared eyes of paintings dropped blobs of black behind them.

.

.

THE LIBRARIAN

.

.

Had Harry not been acquainted with the castle beforehand, he would have never made head or tails of Riddle's 'tour'. Yet he knew Hogwarts very well, and thus reluctantly enjoyed every second of it.

The man didn't point out the obvious things such as bathrooms, main classrooms and offices, student dorms, or kitchens. Harry watched on in amazement how carefully Riddle walked, footfalls as soft as spider legs treading on home webs. Leisurely and almost lazy. And then he would suddenly stop and point out a sculpture, or a staircase, or a hidden door and _talk_ about it.

Harry heard those things for the first time.

Sometimes the Headmaster intrigued him with the promise of adventure:

"Ah, here it is," Riddle murmured and stopped. Harry stuttered to a stop as well, just a few steps behind him. He surveyed a narrow, beaten-down tapestry depicting a dragon hugging a bouquet of azaleas. "One of the passages you might use in the future."

"Where does it lead?"

"It would be boring if I told you." Voldemort smirked. "Things are better learnt when you discover them yourself."

"...Are you sure this doesn't lead to a pit with spikes?"

"Oh, nothing like that. Spikes are so last century. Hogwarts is _my_ school. It has _class_."

Sometimes Voldemort revealed important information:

"I would be careful if I were you," Voldemort's smooth voice drifted from above as Harry followed him up a staircase, his hand clutching the banister. "Some of the steps on Hogwarts staircases are not benevolent."

"Is this one of those Vanishing steps? Or one with the hallucinations?"

He quickly moved up a few paces.

"Good guesses, but no to both."

Harry scrunched up his forehead. "If you want me to try it, too, I'll pass this time."

Riddle laughed.

"Oh, by all means, it is an ordinary step... Unless you are standing on it at midnight."

"This sounds ominous."

"It is. Not for the weak." Voldemort tapped his lower lip with a nail and observed Harry through lowered lashes. "If you dislike a student, you may tell them to meet you here at the right time and see what happens."

Harry gaped at him. What the hell kind of Headmaster was this?

"However, do not touch Knights of Walpurgis," Riddle warned him softly. Supporting himself on the banister, he leaned forward to stare into Harry's face. "I shall be very cross with you if that happens."

Shadows flickered across the Headmaster's face, and Harry was seeing the Dark Lord again.

"Are you going to punish me?" he still asked with faked confidence. His chin jerked up.

A smirk.

"Very, very harshly."

Knights of Walpurgis...

Harry had heard of them.

Voldemort turned away, and the trek to the Divination Tower continued.

...Sometimes Riddle spoke of historic figures connected to the castle. Sometimes he warned Harry to not tramp over a particular stone, or to never look a sculpture in the eye. Sometimes he would simply cast a spell on a piece of metalwork hanging off the ceiling and expose a secret for Harry's stunned eyes.

At some point Harry, competitive over Riddle knowing so much about the castle he considered home, started adding his own two knuts. Riddle already knew about his 'amnesia' from Remus, so Harry just told him that his friend had been a student but he didn't remember a lot.

Whenever Harry spoke up, Riddle gave him that faint ghost of a smile, even though he was always aware of the secrets Harry shared.

The worst thing was...

Harry understood that reaction, the smiles.

The whole tour revealed the boundless love for magic that Voldemort possessed. It humbled Harry. It sped up his heart because this was the adoration that he had only thought himself to have.

Harry held this insane love for magic in his heart that he could never share with anyone: Hermione loved theory and formulae, Ron just took it for granted, Neville was too insecure, Luna's understanding differed far too much from his own, Ginny was talented but her heart lay somewhere else...

And now he saw a person as bedazzled by it as he was.

Just... why Voldemort of all people?

It was almost like gaining and losing a friend.

They reached the familiar stairwell that marked the climb to the trap door on the ceiling. Harry raised his eyes and mentally sighed.

"It's been a while since I've had to climb so many stairs in one day," he lamented to Riddle. "Can I use a broom next time?"

"Exercise is good for you, Mr Evans."

Harry reared up.

"I don't want to hear it from a man who levitated himself half the way!"

"I was flying, not levitating myself. Terminology is important." Voldemort frowned as if the thought of using the wrong word offended his sensibilities. "And, who knows, one day I may end up teaching you as well. If you prove yourself worthy of the knowledge."

The Headmaster shot him a considering look.

Harry's eyes narrowed.

"Thanks, but I'll do perfectly well even without your help."

Voldemort's lips widened in a smirk and he circled Harry in small, lazy steps.

"Learn to fly without my help? Keep this up, and I will be intrigued," he whispered. Harry looked stubbornly at the stairway to the house of prophecies.

"I don't need you to be intrigued, I need you to let me do my job in peace," the dimension-traveller muttered.

"Such commendable work ethics..." Voldemort lingered behind him, his stare falling heavily between Harry's shoulder blades. "Say, we make a bet."

The presence drew nearer, the air grew hotter.

"You will learn to fly without using help in... well, as a generous Headmaster, I am giving you the time frame of three months. If you win, you earn my respect and a favour from me. If I win-"

Harry smirked and spun around on his heels.

"I'm not planning to lose," he breathed out and gods, why were they so close again?

His victory would bring the Headmaster's attention on him, and Harry remembered Riddle being no less of a collector than Slughorn. But the thing about human collections was that the pieces could watch the one who amassed them back.

It would give him proximity. Just what he needed.

Harry didn't have any information about this world. It was another reason for his taking the job – he didn't trust newspapers, Dorcas and Madame Rosmerta mostly preferred to turn on the channels playing the Weird Sisters on the wireless, while books were costly. A librarian, however, could freely tap into any information regarding politics, history, and current affairs.

He strove to be close to Riddle anyway but he needed to know how to _apply_ the information he gathered, and for that he would need to inform himself about the realities of this dimension. Perhaps find himself allies. Maybe someone to fix things. Like Dumbledore.

Meanwhile, he would wait, and learn, and talk with students.

Absorbed in scheming, Harry started his ascent to the ladder.

Ugh, he really hated the Divination Tower staircase.

Five minutes.

Was he just out of practice?

Ten minutes.

The trap door didn't get any closer.

Fifteen minutes.

There was probably something wrong there.

Harry fine-tuned his senses and reached out for his environment the way Hermione taught him to.

Immediately a strange spell jarred his senses.

Harry tried a Finite but it backfired before, out of recesses of his memory, he hauled out an easy incantation to dispel wards.

A series of claps cracked behind him.

"I was unimpressed with how long it took you to recognise the presence of a ward, but you dealt with the problem itself efficiently."

Riddle nodded to himself, as if Harry overcoming the ward was something _he_ accomplished. The pages of an enormous book he was holding – since when? – fluttered.

Harry should be pissed off about the situation but...

"Why are you reading a book?"

"You took a while figuring it out. I cannot afford to waste my time. Unlike you, I have an entire school to run."

"You know, this whole morning I've seen you do literally nothing beneficial for running the school." Harry crossed his arms over his chest.

"I hired you."

"This might be a curse more than a blessing," Harry muttered under his breath. Him and books. Books and him. "Er... aside from that?"

"Oh, I relaxed."

Harry blinked blankly.

"And this helps how exactly?"

"A happy Headmaster means a happy Hogwarts."

 _Well, there_ is _probably a grain of truth in this._

"No, I meant... do something for the pupils."

Riddle's mood darkened. "Ah. Those."

"What do you mean, 'ah, those'?" Harry exclaimed. "Schools _exist_ for pupils-"

"Not mine," Riddle cut him off. Before Harry protested, he found his arms strained with the tome. "If you care about pupils, here. Read this."

Harry eyed the width of the book. Measured the inches.

"Is this some punishment for existing?"

The Headmaster smiled angelically. "Oh no. This is the librarian manual. You have to read _all_ of it to understand your duties. All three thousand pages."

 _Screw the plan, I'm out of here._

Harry backed away. Too late. Riddle closed the space between them and tapped Harry's chin with a gentle finger.

"And if you do not," he murmured, "then I will be forced to give you _real_ punishment."

.

.

THE LIBRARIAN

.

.

A tragic violin melody vibrated in the air.

Shelves sagged under the weight of miscellaneous items collecting dust and cobwebs: tarot cards packs, gazing crystals of all sizes and colours, an array of dented tea cups for reading tea leaves, strange books whose appearance held more magic than the actual contents, an open music box...

The air still overflowed with that thick smell of incense and spice.

One crystal was broken, its shards splattered across the floor like sacrificial blood. Harry shuddered. The Divination Tower didn't inspire any positive emotions in him in the best of times. Abandoned for years, it was menacing.

And he had to make a home here.

Harry glided to the centre to pick one shard up. Warmth still lingered in it. Harry had always wondered what gazing crystals held inside but there lay nothing but glass.

A yellowed, water-wrinkled tarot card stole his attention. He gathered it.

The Star?

Harry smiled. A good omen for once. The drawing, albeit tainted, twinkled merrily.

Riddle told him to have a look at his new abode and entertain himself for an hour before coming down to lunch. He should clean up a little. First, the cobwebs and everything broken in the room.

While Riddle permitted him to employ house elves, Harry preferred to deal with it manually. It was even fun to uncover something new, something exciting – the Headmaster had told him that everything he found, he could use freely because the previous owner had no need of the possessions they'd left behind.

It sounded terribly suspicious to Harry but he was willing to let it go for now.

Besides, he had hardly anything to his name. Just a trunk from a world of people who would always be ghosts to him now.

And... wait, he remembered Dorcas urging him to drop by after the interview. She and Madame Rosmerta had gathered a few things into a bag to take with him to Hogwarts.

 _"_ _It's terribly sad to start your life in such a place with nothing on your back, isn't it, dear?"_ Dorcas had said to him, and Harry was now a proud owner of a Celestina Warbeck tall mug, an embroidered pillow with an otter that reminded him of Hermione's Patronus, several explicit posters with moving pictures of naked ladies (Harry was going to shove those somewhere deep down and hope no one found out), a sloppy home-made quilt, and a miscellany of other items that ultimately proved to be totally useless but warmed his heart all the same.

An hour flew by. He unearthed a few more stray tarot cards – The Chariot, The Tower, and Death – a case of sherry, and several containers full of bird remains used for augury. Most of the time he just wiped away the dust and erased signs of neglect.

Before coming downstairs, he shut the lid of the music box with a soft _clink_. The silence was lonely.

.

.

THE LIBRARIAN

.

.

After seeing Remus he had prepared himself for the possibility. Of course he had. He had even readied himself to see his parents, and Professor Dumbledore, and all those people lost to him forever, and yet...

Harry's stomach twisted into knots. His heartbeat stumbled.

 _Sirius_.

He couldn't breathe.

And there, by his side... Bellatrix Lestrange.

In another world, he would have attacked her on sight. Sent a Killing Curse, for the first time in his life. Would have made her beg, and scream, and in as much pain as he endured for every second of the life he couldn't share with his godfather.

But now, here, exhaustion after the mind attack, and the tour, and the cleaning, and life in general weighed him down. Voldemort had inured him to all shocks. Most important...

They were laughing. Together.

Harry's heart clenched, fluttered in his chest. They noticed him first, and Sirius held out a strong hand. He brimmed with health.

"Whoa, Remus didn't mention that our new addition is so ridiculously pretty!" His godfather grinned – a light, happy grin. Harry realised he had never seen the man smile like that in his own world. "Hey, kiddo, I'm Sirius Black – you've heard all 'bout me, haven't you? – and this hag here is my cousin. Always forget her name."

"Bella. I'm poisoning you at dinner for this, cousin." The witch sneered. "And you are Harry Evans?"

Harry scrutinised her face, green eyes blazing, his hand caressing his wand through the fabric of his pocket. He never pulled it out. This was the same as meeting Voldemort. He hated those people. He didn't truly believe they were different from their counterparts in his dimension.

But he would play along. He would act friendly and unassuming. Worm his way into their good graces. And once he saw an opportunity... no one would see him coming.

"Yes," he replied curtly but not too spitefully... he hoped.

"Welcome to our happy family!" Sirius beamed, brighter than the flickers of sun reflected off the rows of armours down the corridor.

Harry flushed, and teared up, and for once wished to be in the shadows of the dungeons that concealed and disguised.

"Ah!.. Thank you," he whispered. He stuck his hands in his pockets. Then linked them. Then crossed his arms. He blushed at the sight he must be making but couldn't take control.

Sirius chuckled and gave Bellatrix a one-armed embrace.

"Look at this blushing face! Remus never told me how cute he is either!"

Bellatrix skewered her cousin with a glower before twisting his arm away from her with just two fingers, like a true lady.

"He has some dress sense problems, though," she drawled before addressing Harry who was about ready to fall into hysterics. "Baby, you dress like Cissa in her pregnancy. If you ever want to wear _real_ clothes, come to Bella, little one." She chortled. "You would look stunning in a corset."

Harry found his voice.

 _Act normal. Act as if you like them – people put their trust easier in someone who enjoys their company._

"I have no corset experience, I'll pass on wearing them. But I'm always ready to help you with putting one on."

If he tied her corset too tight and she suffocated, would it be called murder or manslaughter?

Bellatrix oohed. Sirius whistled.

Harry realised with dread that he might have said something inappropriate.

"You're not too ugly, I suppose..." The witch drawled, examining him shrewdly. Harry's eyes bulged and he realised with horror that Bellatrix Lestrange was checking him out. "But I already have a husband. And my husband's brother. And their mother. And my cousin. And wasn't there this nice flower lady in Knockturn? Oh well." She shrugged apologetically.

"Tie!" he hissed. "I meant I'll help you _tie_ it! Not..."

"Yeah, they all say that," Sirius piped up and barked in laughter.

Harry knotted an angry fist on his hip.

"You are not even my type!" he burst out. He was talking about types with Bellatrix and Sirius. At the same time. Harry decided to just pretend that everything was a bad dream and roll with it. "I love redheads!"

Redheads. _Ginny_. Oh Merlin how much he missed her. Had missed her during the horcrux hunt, for the whole year of tents and forests.

Sirius winced, while Bellatrix sneered.

"Redheads," she spat out. She shook her head, and her hair flapped behind her like a war-torn battle flag. "Nothing special about redheads."

Harry smirked and opened his mouth, but Sirius jumped to him and shoved his palm right into his face.

His godfather whispered, "Look, kid, if you don't want a knitting needle in your face, don't say anything. You don't wanna repeat my experience."

"I hear you," the witch snarled and turned her nose up. "Thank you for reminding me of the reason why I wanted to tag along with you in the first place, useless cousin; times like these I almost don't want to quarter you."

She rummaged in the folds of her dress – Harry didn't want to think what her hands touched there – before pulling out... something.

It was... supposed to be fluffy and cuddly?

It wasn't.

But there was a glaring golden eye. And purple tentacles. To Harry, it looked like Satan found a new home.

"Er... is this boggart's true form mated with the Giant Squid?"

"This is a present!" Bellatrix declared and hugged the thing to her chest. The thing watched Harry with its malicious golden eye. Harry wasn't even distracted by the chest size, even though there was a lot to be distracted by.

"A present?... Um, all right, it's not my business to know whom you want to mentally scar."

Sirius cackled. "You're in for a surprise, kiddo."

"You have now joined the elite and exclusive ranks of our Headmaster's staff," Bellatrix proclaimed and raised her abomination up into the air. "As a colleague, I have to welcome you. So, here, this will keep you warm at night!"

She thrust it right into his hands – Sirius, _Sirius_ was helping her! – and Harry just stared down at it.

"Yeah, it's going to keep me warm at night because it will carry me into the fires of hell when I sleep." He whimpered.

Could he curl up and die?

The... plushie's eye shone brighter.

As soon as he came back to the tower, he was shoving it together with those smutty posters; they could definitely keep each other warm.

"This is not all!" Bellatrix crowed.

"Is there ever an end to torment?" Harry mumbled into the void.

"-Since I'm going to show everyone that I'm better than that redhead blood-traitor bitch, I also knit scarves and sweaters as Yule gifts to everyone!" She smiled, all her teeth shinier than Lockhart's. Quite an improvement in contrast to the post-Azkaban version.

Then Sirius said something that Harry only forgave because the man was wonderfully, blissfully _alive_ to say it:

"Oh, but haven't you heard that Molly also knits those cute little jumpers for everyone's birthdays, too, now?"

"Excuse me?" Bellatrix narrowed her eyes.

"Yep!" Sirius glomped Harry from behind. "And guess what? This kid here has a birthday coming up in just a little over a week!"

"If this is going where I think it's going, I'm going to- have a serious talk with you," Harry growled into his godfather's ear.

"You!" Bellatrix hissed and pointed at him with a red sharp nail. "You are going to receive a Lestrange sweater for your birthday even if I have to force you."

With that, she dramatically flipped her hair back and stalked away. Harry had never felt more threatened in his life.

Sirius patted him on the back.

"Well, gotta say that everyone's got to go through that dark stripe of life."

This was bizarre. Harry didn't understand anything anymore and wanted some other train to come and whisk him away someplace that actually made sense.

And yet...

Warmth bloomed on his back, beneath Sirius' hand.

Harry blinked away a tear.

Ridiculous. He had come to terms with Sirius' death. He would always, _always_ blame himself – but he accepted the blame and the shame. And now, as he stood by the man's side, the guilt should squash him. Crash down and keep him six feet under, buried in the ashes of his dream of a family that never came true.

Yet, when Sirius grinned brighter and teased him with a glowing face, when the man gesticulated wildly to imitate his cousin, only relief greeted him like an old friend.

First Remus, now Sirius.

Instead of devastating him, their presence purified his heart, and suddenly he laughed the way he hadn't since the beginning of the war. Sirius bumped him with his shoulder, and Harry shoved him in response, and then it was a challenge about who would get to the Great Hall first and whether they would beat Bellatrix to it.

All the while Sirius gave him tips on how to survive a supper with the Dark Lord – _he hogs all chocolate cake, kid,_ never _touch chocolate cake before he's sated_ – and how to dodge Bellatrix' dessert knives when she was bored.

Harry was still dazed.

He was going to have supper. With Voldemort, Hagrid, Sirius, Remus, and a _knitting_ Bellatrix Lestrange all sitting at the same table.

Harry wondered where he had gone wrong with his life.

But... even if this was wrong, maybe he didn't mind at all.

* * *

\- The naming issue. You've probably noticed that Harry often calls Tom 'Voldemort' or 'the Dark Lord', even though there is no indication whether the man is really a Dark Lord, a slimy politician, or, you know, a good hard-working headmaster trying to do his job. This is on purpose, because even though he's had time to reconcile with the fact that Tom is different in this world and even though he's convinced himself enough to act normal-ish, Harry is still in a bit of a flux and tends to mix personalities up. The same concerns Sirius (whom he still calls his godfather) and Bellatrix. I'm just mentioning it now because this isn't going away until he truly sorts himself out and gets to know all those people to differentiate them from the ones he used to know.

\- Sucky Headmaster Riddle. I love a competent Professor/Headmaster Riddle. Those fics give me life. This fic was supposed to contain a reasonable, students-above-everything Headmaster Riddle as well. However, since this story's already going bizarre in too many ways, I decided to screw it and make him a lot like Albus, except in a different direction: Albus loves his students and protects them with all he has, however we've got to agree that no one gets any education done. Tom is totally oposite. And both of them are more concerned with outside factors than, you know, the actual running of the school. Politics and war overtakes Albus' life, while Tom... well, you've gotta read to find out ;p But just know that this characterisation is actually more realistic with his background in this universe.

\- Hogwarts secrets. This is one of the main attractions of the HP series to me - how there are these amazing locations and they all hold those secret passages, tapestries, puzzles hidden in paintings, and the like. It's something that makes the books truly _magical_. And I almost always try to give my stories this edge. In this case, it's how Hogwarts contains secrets available for staff only, bits of hidden history and knowledge - and what better guide could Harry have than Tom? (Also, next chapter is one of my favourites because the library is introduced, and writing worldbuilding bits like this is my bread).

Anyway, hope you weren't too disappointed with this chapter!


	3. Chapter 3 My Hands Around Your Throat

Hello and thank you all so much for reading, liking, and reviewing this story! It's been a long while, but if you've read he ANs I left on my recently updated works, you probably know that the huge delay is because nowadays I've mostly switched fandoms and hang around Katekyo Hitman Reborn as well as KHR/HP crossovers. Writing Tomarrymort became a bit of a chore, but now I'm slowly drifting back to my origins it seems lol.

Hope you enjoy this chapter! Oh, and please mind the POV switch in the end.

If you think that Voldemort is a sweet lovable boy in this, you're mistaken.

Also, this is slow burn. It's gonna be a while before they even kiss, but damn am I going to tease you all to hell and back in the meantime.

* * *

 _Chapter 3. My Hands Around Your Throat_

* * *

' _Cause all your heads are gonna roll_

 _I've made your misery my goal_

 _So if you want survival, kneel on my arrival_

 _This is how I rule the world!_

 _No one can stop me, for only I am in control_

* * *

After the most bizarre and traumatising supper in his life, Harry opened the doors leading out of the Great Hall... and stopped short.

A storm of ashes raged through the corridor. Flakes drummed down the tiles, whirled to catch in the décor, stormed onto his face in gusts. A fleck dashed into his mouth when he gasped in surprise. He spluttered, but the charcoal-like taste lingered on his tongue.

Harry snapped the door shut with a _boom_. Re-opened. The ashes didn't go anywhere. Harry slammed the door again. _Of course_ even Hogwarts would go all wonky on him.

Bellatrix harrumphed at the table behind him. Despite the distance, the emptiness of the Hall carried the sound.

"I despise it when this happens," the woman said haughtily and flicked the cutlery knife she snitched from Hagrid at the double doors, missing Harry by just a thread. The boy cursed and ducked.

"Well, _I_ despise it when _this_ happens, but do you see me complaining? You should. Because I am. Complaining," Harry hissed at her, swinging around. Green eyes blazed.

"Now, Bella, you cannot maim our new staff," Headmaster Riddle pacified his employee softly. He paid more attention to the chocolate cake splayed sinfully across his plate, stabbing a piece with his fork before putting it into his mouth and humming around the utensil. It honestly shouldn't look as good as it did. "Wait until he has cleaned out the library at least."

"I'm so happy you value me enough to postpone my beheading."

Harry glowered at them – yes, even at the chortling Sirius – as he dusted his clothes. Oh well, at least now he had a reason to throw out this dreadful dress.

He frowned in concentration as he tried and failed to remember a time when his own Hogwarts had gone all ash-rain on them... _except_ for that time when the Weasley twins decided that rain suited Snape's mood, tweaked a weather spell, and overdid it. Slightly. 'The whole of Hogwarts soaked to the last stone' slightly.

"Does this happen often?" Harry gestured widely at the door and what lay behind it.

"Only sometimes? Just conjure an umbrella and everything's gonna be okie!" Sirius raised his fingers in a victory sign and smiled brilliantly. Remus just shook his head.

Hagrid mumbled something shyly into his pudding. This version was far more timid than the Hagrid Harry used to know, but perhaps it had something to do with sitting at the same table with the man whose sweetly poisonous words had expelled him.

"Now, Mr Evans," Voldemort distracted Harry from his glowering. "Shall we go?"

He frowned.

"Where to? You've already shown me my new room." He tried to convey just what he thought about both the room and Voldemort's showing. "And I can go to the library on my own, there is no need to worry."

"Mr Evans, I never worry." The Headmaster leaned back in his throne-like chair which was even more throne-like and bigger than Harry remembered it being. It was a massive freaking thing incrusted with emeralds and webbed with patterns of silver, and Harry had known whose it was the second he entered the Great Hall. The temptation to make a bad joke about men who like big things was there, but he resisted it valiantly. "However, we still have business to attend to."

"And I can't attend to it... without you?" Harry asked without much hope, taking his head into his hand. "Alone? With Sirius even or Hagrid?"

"No," Riddle told him with a beautiful smile and all the finality of death.

"I don't mean to offend you," Harry lied. He totally did. "It's just that... I don't want to waste even more of your time."

"Oh, Mr Evans, time spent with you is never a waste."

Riddle got up, gracefully and lazily, like a predator that relaxed because its prey couldn't go anywhere. With even steps he neared Harry, his cologne briefly wafting in the space between them. His eyes were hungry even though they had just eaten.

"I have to key you into the library wards, otherwise there won't be any work done, as you understand," he told Harry softly as he passed by and towards the door. Utterly nonchalant.

 _I really don't, but let's roll with this for now._

Harry nodded, sighed, and faced the door before braving it open.

.

.

THE LIBRARIAN

.

.

Harry might have enjoyed walking through the familiar hallways thrumming with beautiful, nostalgic magic...

Except that of course he didn't.

Even though an elegant summoned umbrella shielded them from the strange ashes raging through the corridors, which erupted into an even fiercer storm the deeper they went into the castle, Voldemort didn't have the decency to cast the same spell for them separately. Rather, he left Harry with two choices: brave the weather conditions alone (which shouldn't have been an issue in normal circumstances because don't buildings exist _exactly_ to shelter people from the weather?) or share the protection with the Headmaster.

Well, to be honest, he hadn't been given a choice. Voldemort just "offered" his elbow. Scorning the man would have prolonged the time they had to spend together, which Harry wanted even less.

And now...

He was sharing an 'umbrella' with a version of Voldemort.

It wasn't the type of circumstances Harry had ever wanted to have in his life, and yet lookie-lookie, there they were.

He clenched the rich velvet of the Headmaster's robes with extra force, hoping his nails hurt. Maybe he reinforced his clutch with a spell or two. Who could tell?

Well, Voldemort could, apparently, judging by the smirk playing lazily across his lips, but Harry was petty like that. He would be Slytherin enough to not confront Voldemort openly in big ways (not yet) but he would take what he could get.

Everything to ignore the emotions rising in him at the proximity.

Oh, he would have liked to say he experienced something akin to the feelings of heroines from romcoms with the 'Enemies to Friends to Lovers' trope, something like shy love or heartbeat thrumming gently in his ears born from the budding change in their relationship... But he didn't.

Disgust. Despise. Determintation.

Those were closer to reality. And if his heart thrummed, it was because Harry suppressed the urge to whip out his wand and-

 _Avada Kedavra. Crucio. Reducto_ to the head.

Spells swam like fog in front of his eyes, and Harry almost flinched at the realisation of how easily the wand movements would come to him if called.

He had thought, just an hour ago, that he had come to peace with everything. He lied. _Touching_ the man evoked all the negativity he repressed, as if enticing Harry's dark side to come out to play. Sweetly. Softly. Not unlike the time Voldemort tried to possess him at the Department of Mystery.

He... didn't want to feel that way.

He didn't want to touch him because this darkness wasn't Harry (and if it was, he would gladly close his eyes to it), but by stepping back he would admit defeat, and Harry was incapable of it, no matter how much this pride would cost him.

The only difference is that back then, even in Harry's mind the wizard watched him, red eyes ready to light up with triumph had he fallen into his seductive web.

Now, instead...

The Headmaster was walking with him, under the same shield, yet they were not together. His eyes focused on the castle and its magic, disregarding him, as if Harry's existence paled in comparison to the eternities of knowledge he traced there.

It was... surprisingly disconcerting.

Harry refused to dwell on the subject further. Grasped for a topic to bring up instead.

"That tower..." he started softly, a faint frown on his forehead. "Who lived there before me?"

Trelawney, most likely, but he would like some confirmation. Anything to remind him of his true home, true world.

"No one," the Headmaster told him with disinterest.

Harry almost stumbled in surprise.

"That's not true?" He lifted his chin to peer into the Headmaster's eyes hidden by the shaggy fringe. "There are quite a lot of belongings there. I know; I've had to clean it."

Voldemort sighed, a soft gust of breath that moved the tips of Harry's hair.

"Perhaps I phrased it wrongly." The man's lips twisted. He obviously didn't believe he had phrased anything wrong in his life. "A woman lived there, a foolish and weak one. She had potential but wasted it horribly on stubbornness and dreams. Then she died before she made anything of herself, and now she will always be no one and nothing."

The Headmaster smiled and laid his hand down on Harry's, strangely warm, and real, and alive - the last of which Harry wanted to fix so much. The sight, the sensation disoriented him. He wasn't sure what to feel.

"You shouldn't worry or wonder about it, Mr Evans. I assure you that your value is much higher than that - or so I hope," he breathed out the last words like a prayer one says before eternal sleep.

His eyes gleamed red with all the madness of a dream, and suddenly Harry knew what he felt.

He felt pissed off as hell.

"You are disgusting. A person can never be 'nothing'."

A second passed before Harry recognised the cold voice as his own.

Voldemort chuckled. Despite himself, Harry marvelled at the rich, vibrating sound. It grounded him to this reality because of the dissonance with the high-pitched tone invading the nightmares he dreamed and used to live.

"Perhaps you are still young and foolish yourself," he murmured with a disappointed face. Harry resisted that powerful charisma that pushed him into accepting that disappointment as his own. He would not accommodate that man's wishes. "Oh well. I am very invested in making you learn."

At the sight of that dark, enchanting smirk, Harry levelled the Headmaster with an unimpressed look.

"I promise I will not be a good investment."

He inched the hand wrapped around the Dark Lord's elbow closer to the man's fingers, and twisted.

By the time they reached the library, the storm tempered to a sorrowful and gentle rain of ashen flowers that strangely felt like something giving in.

.

.

THE LIBRARIAN

.

.

Once he entered the library, Harry's first thought was...

Fuck if this wasn't the messiest room he had ever seen. Yes, counting Ron's bedroom.

Columns of books teetered haphazardly on the edges of desks, crowded the windowsills and aisles, occupied all the tiny cubbyholes Harry used to hide in with his friends. Shrieks rang in the distance, coming from the Restricted Section. Some of the chained tomes there floated around or paced with tattered book-covers like lions in a cage. A Monster Book of Monsters was chasing what Harry could only assume was an Invisible Book of Invisibility, while a little gathering of Sneaky Books of Sneaky Spells planned out the assassination of a regal-looking tome gilded with gold and jewels.

Harry thought the library acquired a weird-looking carpet before he scraped that thought once he realised that the carpet was made of pages, scraps, and unlucky periodicals. The people in the newspaper photographs either hid or pouted, while some furiously shook their fists at the battlefield above, shouting obscenities with soundless lips.

Thus, his second significant thought was... _he_ had to clean it all up.

His third thought...

Harry turned on his heels to smile at the Headmaster. Very sweetly.

"If you tell me that you let all this mess grow just for someone like me to deal with, I'm going to start planning homicide right this moment."

" _Planning_ homicide takes all the joy out of it. You can reach the right amount of passion only with improvisation."

"Oh, I bet you would know a lot about this."

Voldemort inclined his head modestly.

"My knowledge is vast and varied. Unlike yours." He inclined his head and whispered close to Harry's ear, "I can teach you, if you wish-" Moving away, he added brusquely, "But later. Now, quit your whining. We need to key you into the wards and officially welcome you into our happy family."

Actually, that dark side and Avada Kedavra business from before?

It sounded wonderful.

During the whole warding process, Harry blocked out the cacophony and pacified himself with remarkably therapeutic thoughts of slaughter.

THE LIBRARIAN

Harry didn't have to sleep in the haunted classroom, fortunately: some further poking and prodding of his new abode revealed that if he flicked a switch by Trelawney's desk, he summoned a rope ladder he could climb to enter his actual room.

It was... a painful experience.

He would have preferred sleeping in the classroom, to be honest, if not for the waves of nostalgia rising up and spilling into depression at the sight of the familiar scrying tools, and copies of 'Unfogging the Future', and cups with tea leaves. Even cleaned-up, that classroom reminded him of Ron. The Ron he wouldn't see again, the one who created memories with him, of friendship, and adventures, and loyalty, and joy, and betrayed sadness.

Voldemort assigned this place to him, and somehow this gesture that should have been innocuous brought up more anger and emotion than Harry's deep-seated, old, consuming hate.

Then again, perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise. Long-term hate drained. The intensity was exhausting to keep up, generally simmering down into bone-deep tiredness that Harry couldn't fight.

However, small but constant instances of pain, of resentment, accumulated like paper cuts, not letting the wound heal.

...And did Harry even want to heal?

He swept the room with his gaze. Voldemort's words from before echoed in his head.

'Nothing'.

The room was circular and small, smaller than the Gryffindor dorm room, but perfect for accommodating one person. A long wardrobe curved by the door, taking up about the third of the total length, very intricate and old-looking, bent to suit the shape of the tower. A window took up the rest of the wall, with a narrow writing desk and a low bed (almost like a cot, but soft and covered with plush pillows) just below. The ceiling was incredibly high, dark, and foggy; black mist hid the real height from the eye and swirled around little motley lights.

Yet another rope ladder up, there was a bathroom. Like most things (except for the bed that Harry had got replaced because he wasn't sleeping in the same one as the woman), it remained intact from the time Trelawney lived there.

Which meant there was a cabinet full of bath supplies he would put in her trunk later, an array of expensive perfumes, some carved soaps with little pearls on the sink...

And a bouquet.

However, unlike the bouquets back in the classroom, which gently shed desiccated petals into forgotten teacups, this one held only stems. The blossoms piled up by the vase, as if someone had cut them up.

Well, that's depressing.

Harry traced his finger down the spine of a book he found in the upper drawer of the desk. A diary. He didn't peep, but there was a quote on a note tucked between the pages that fell out:

 _Being loved is a fate crueller than death._

Harry tucked those sad words, so unlike everything he remembered of Trelawney, in the corner of his mind before storing the diary away into the wardrobe of secrets not his own, the side he decided to leave to its former owner.

Of course, he should have got rid of everything. He had planned on doing so. But-

 _She was nothing._

Those words touched and hurt a part of Harry he refused to acknowledge. The selfish side, the one that wanted his friends to miss him when he's gone and wondered what would be said of _him_ back home. The one that didn't want-

"You deserve better than to be nothing, Professor," he whispered.

He didn't love his teacher, but hearing Riddle speak of her that way, hearing Sirius and Remus dismiss her as a dead weirdo without a second thought...

She deserved better than a depressing quote, dismissive words, and a heap of decapitated roses as the only memory of her.

It wasn't selfless action on his part. He was relieving the ache in his own heart.

.

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THE LIBRARIAN

.

.

"You know, I really want to use my authority as the librarian to throw you all out. Care to remember good old school days?"

"What do you mean, 'throw out'?" Sirius gasped before batting his eyes at him innocently, a wolfish grin on his lips, and face too close to Harry's. "Old woman Pince never threw us out! We were most exemplary students!"

"Let me guess. By 'exemplary you mean you used the Confundus on her?" Harry said dryly, pushing the man away from him.

Sirius winked at him.

"Oh, he got more creative than that, my lovely!" an airy voice smacked into his range of hearing.

"And what are you doing here?" Harry couldn't be blamed for taking the coldness in his tone up a notch. Well, at least he didn't blame himself.

"Ah, I just enjoy work," Bellatrix said with a dreamy sigh, finishing another row of her... whatever that knitted thing was supposed to be. Harry just hoped it never went anywhere near him. And yes, it was a legitimate concern, because some of Bellatrix' creations (he dearly wanted to say 'perversions' because the word suited much better) really could draw latent magic and move. Was this how those Chuckie films were made?

Still.

"You know you're not doing any of it right now?" He didn't hide his aggravation.

"Well, I never said I enjoy me working."

Harry gave up with a glower and returned to sorting through the periodicals bound tightly in stacks.

Urgh. Was this how Hermione felt when he and Ron chose to goof around instead of helping her? Merciful Merlin, if they ever met again, he would knit hats for SPEW himself as an apology.

The amount of books, scrolls, and periodicals in the General Potions section alone made him want to fold into a foetal position, curl his toes, throw on a blanket, and forget the world's existance for the next two centuries or so.

He had never quite registered the amount of categories the Hogwarts library had. He had mostly hung around the Defence, Charms, and Transfiguration sections. Most of the school-related material either came from Hermione or was listed by their teachers, so all he had to do was ask Madame Pince for a particular tome. Harry hadn't been a huge fan of fiction, either magical or muggle, and in the rare occasions he did browse outside his usual fields of interest, he had never bothered to watch the names of the sections.

He would have liked to not bother with it still.

There were well over two hundred sections in the Hogwarts Library, and that's not even counting the numerous subsections. Harry didn't even want to look at those in fear that he might cry if he ever did.

He had never suspected Hogwarts library to be so huge.

Some of the sections were pretty ordinary, like Common Poisons, Practical Herbology, Astronomy, and the like. But Harry's life wouldn't be that simple.

He also discovered the existence of a web-covered Arachnomancy section, a noisy Magoventriloquistry section, a whole section devoted to the theory of Bibliomagia, the Time Travel section with a surpringly well-loved and frequently read books...

Harry made a mental note to hang around that last one, too.

...As soon as he was finished. Damn.

.

.

THE LIBRARIAN

.

.

Even Headmasters whose only pastime was subjugating a whole school needed a relaxing walk in the sunshine once in a while.

Today was perfect.

What made the situation even better was the lone figure sitting on a big stone by the lake. The Headmaster smirked.

Evans wouldn't mind some company, would he?

The sun splashed its light on the water the boy was playfully sloshing around with his toes. His jeans – Tom sneered at the muggle-ness – were rolled up but it didn't save them: droplets of muddy water scattered across the coarse fabric, which didn't bother Evans at all. How slovenly. He would have to set out to correct this attitude. Good thing that Tom was good at correcting attitudes.

He took a second to admire the younger man's back, his slender form. His lovely neck. Mentally, he wrapped his hands around it.

He wanted to press. To caress. Wanted to leave butterfly kisses of violet, and blue, and yellow in the wake of his touch. Wanted to mark, to bite. Wanted to-

"I don't know what you're thinking about, Headmaster, but with the way my neck is burning, I can't imagine it to be anything good," the boy suddenly said.

The Headmaster stopped just behind him, his knee hitting the gentle slope of Evans' lower back.

 _On the contrary, it is something fantastic... for me._

Tom smiled and laid his hand on the bared shoulder. Tormented himself by slowly inching down to the clavicle. Lightly patted the boy's hot skin, pressed to feel the bone beneath its silk. So birdlike. So fragile.

Evans shivered under his touch.

"Your clothes will get soiled," Tom said mildly, the impeccable Headmaster.

"They're beyond help anyway," Evans muttered. He dislodged Tom's hand with a shrug – the impertinence! – and tipped his head upwards. Their eyes met. His fringe fell back to reveal a zigzagging scar that only emphasized his beauty.

"We need to find you new clothes, then."

Tom hid a hitch in his breath and allowed himself a smirk. Ah, he would so insist on tagging along. It would only be natural to assist the newest member of his staff, right? Evans probably wouldn't even know how to put on robes correctly.

The anticipation of showing him the right way raked through Tom's body. Such a... novel experience.

Strange, the things Evans made him feel.

"Where do I find the money? You're yet to pay me."

"Oh, it will be a present. These garments are... satisfactory-" Tom had to force the word out because they clearly were not. "-for a summer day at the lake, but we cannot have my employee going around in anything less than robes when the term starts."

Evans raised a brow. "Sounds fake but okay."

The Headmaster's lips thinned.

"Don't you believe in presents?"

"Not from you. But, um, I have something of a present for you, too," Evans declared. An odd smile flitted across his lips.

Tom raised an eyebrow.

"Something worthy?"

"Something useful. I made it myself, just for you. Although the idea is inspired by something my friend used to do a lot - probably still does, we haven't seen each other in favorable circumstances for a while." Evans' voice softened towards the end, and his green eyes fogged up with that faraway look. He perked up a second later. "Ah, anyway! Here you go."

He leant down to rummage around a wicker basket that had been hidden from view by the stone, pulling out...

Was that a... flower crown?

Voldemort adjusted his facial expression quickly, but going by the fleeting smug look of enjoyment on Evans' face the boy caught it anyway.

"Do you like it?" he asked with a sweet expression. Tom almost let himself be distracted by the attractive dimples.

"It's rather... unique."

"I wanted to give you something no one has ever given you before."

"Remarkably, you have succeeded."

It was a flower crown, except that instead of flowers it was made of radishes. They all even had tiny frowny faces carved into them, while eyes were made of black cloves stuck inside.

"My friend always were some radishes as part of her complex defence system against Wrackspurts," Evans said with a pleased grin. Tom frowned at the name of this... creature? What were Wrackspurts? He needed to research. "But you need more defence than her, considering everything. Here, let me help you put this on."

He came closer, letting Voldemort catch wisps of his scent. He smelled strangely of bakery and butterbeer. Ah, must have gone to Hogsmeade. That also explained the basket containing a selection of leftover radishes that hadn't made it into the Wrackspurt-protetion crown as well as some other fruit and vegetables. The Headmaster pressed his lips with displeasure at the thought of Evans frequenting the witches in the Three Broomsticks so much. Something should be done about it.

Oh well. He had good imagination. And Bellatrix' lessons were commencing. Evans wouldn't have time for stupid things like 'hanging out' with friends.

The Headmaster watched through half-lidded eyes as Evans stood up on his toes to stretch his hands and place the radish crown onto his head. For a moment, their faces were so close Voldemort could see the stunning scar on the boy's forehead with more detail than what had ever been allowed to him before.

He wanted to touch it, suddenly. It almost... called to him. As if that part meant to belong to him in another universe.

Voldemort wasn't a man stopped by propriety and would have acted on his wishes, but-

He noticed the fine tremors in Evans' fingers before the boy stumbled back away from him. Caught the disquiet and discomfort in his enchanting green gaze.

Tom laughed. He ignored Evans' strange look, ignored the weight of the radish crown on his head that suddenly pressed on that much heavier.

He understood the reason for this gift, for all those brave looks and touches.

He caught the boy's wrist in his hand. Bony and so warm.

"Is this your way of coping with your fear of me?" he asked huskily.

He tightened his hold, ensuring that forget-me-nots of bruises would bloom, a memento from his harsh fingertips.

Evans tugged hard. Voldemort let him slip from his grasp. He enjoyed the glower, the fire in his eyes. The stubbornness in the set of his jaw.

"There is no fear, Riddle. I don't know why the hell you're like this, but I don't appreciate this handsy approach," Evans snapped before rubbing his wrist with the air of offended dignity. "Anyway, I'm not in the mood to stay out for much longer. I'm going back. And don't you have literally anything else to do?"

"Even if I did, nothing is as important as accompanying you to the castle," Voldemort purred. Evans opened his mouth, but the Headmaster silenced him with a cutting, "I insist."

"If you're so bored, fine."

Without waiting, Evans summoned an elf to tell the thing to take the basket to his rooms before striding forward with a brisk, energetic step.

The Headmaster allowed him that indulgence. Pushing the boy today wouldn't result in anything productive.

 _One day, he'll come to you. A green-eyed child of prophecies and tragedies._

He came. Harry Evans. The closest to fit the description, green-eyed and with the airs and pull of someone who _belonged_ in Tom's life. A boy whose place by the Headmaster's side was decided by fate, be it in life or death.

His intuition was screaming that he was making the right choice.

Of course, intuition was a fickle thing. Alone, it meant nothing. Tom, however, would work to make it right – prophecies shifted, and he influenced this one by placing the boy in the Divination Tower, which fulfilled another condition. A child of prophecies.

As for tragedies...

Tom could arrange some.

The bonds that tied him to Hogwarts thrummed with life at the thought. Tom spared a look at the imposing castle – castle, a home to many, but also a grave. A fortress against political intrigue, but also its homeland. A place where potential was born and buried. A place with such a rich, enticing history, yet reduced to a mere school in the minds of so many.

He recalled his classmates from his student days.

When they looked at Hogwarts, they saw feasts and tests, pranks and detentions, days of fun and nights of daring. Adventures. Points, Quidditch cups, and the art of pretending that the outside world does not exist.

When Tom looked at Hogwarts, he saw the sacrifice and tragedy that slathered every stone.

As the voice of Hogwarts, the only true Headmaster the school had ever known, he would transfer and spread his vision. He wouldn't let them erase history, battles, and forbidden magic born in the bowels of the dungeons just to maintain an illusion of a happy childhood for brats who didn't even understand the meaning of power and greatness.

Tom's eyes bore into Evans' back, laughing, almost tender.

Ah, he wondered what the boy would make of his rule over the school.

"You will hate it," he breathed. A sharp smile graced his face. "You will hate _me_."

Tom shivered because he was excited for the first time in a long, long while, and wasn't it time to remind the world of just how cruel his excitement could be?

Harry Evans didn't hear him, walking unaware into the jaws of double doors leading into a maze of halls and classrooms completely under Tom's control, making the Headmaster wonder if he even knew that everything inside the castle belonged to Tom, eternally. Even the people. Even this new boy. Such a beautiful, beautiful boy with a halo of light against the setting sun and shoulders sagging under the weight of invisible sadness.

Hogwarts, _his_ Hogwarts, was no place for a man like Harry. A man with too sincere smiles, and too bright eyes, and too kind heart. With bird-like bones and a bird-like heart fluttering in his chest against Tom's fingertips.

...And that was why he would build a cage around that heart. Chop off the wings and hold him down.

Hogwarts, _his_ Hogwarts, was no place for freedom either.

* * *

\- Here, have some thirsty Voldemort no one has ever asked nor needed lol.

\- I haven't managed to put in everything I wanted in this chapter, but I figured that hey, it's still better than nothing.

\- Reviews are always read and treasured!


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